Which makes it a problem if you’re afraid of crowds.

The problem is, crowds can appear as if from thin air. You could be standing in a shopping mall or empty street, then you turn around and you’re surrounded by people and more people. Like a scene out of the movies.

Most of the time, there’s actually nothing dangerous about crowds. However, if you are afraid of crowds then it’s not much use trying to tell your mind that. There’s a good likelihood that your mind will be working overtime, deciding on exactly how this current crowd can be harmful to you. Regardless of the fact that they’re just a group of strangers intent on minding their own business, not a lynch mob.

So what are your options to make yourself calmer if you’re unfortunate enough to find yourself standing in the center of a large, seemingly angry, crowd?

Listening to your rational mind saying “it’s OK” will likely be as useful as a chocolate teapot.

Taking a few deep breaths may work. Or at least stop you panicking totally.

Then let your survival instinct take over and head for the closest exit. Steadily. Without running.

After that, you need to do something more.

If it’s possible, think back to when you first became frightened of crowds. It probably goes back to your childhood and you lost track of your parents for a few super-scary minutes. Quite often, phobias such as this one go a long way back in our life to our time as a child and we weren’t as rational and straight thinking as we are as an adult.

If it’s possible to trace your fear of crowds back to one particular time, one of the best ways to cure yourself is to modify the response you learned in those few minutes. This is quite easy to do but is something you should seek professional help with.

That said, one thing you can use is a hypnosis track for fear of crowds – this works most of the time for most people and well worth checking out as your first step to curing yourself.